The Detroit Lions have a new kicker. With Matt Prater gone to Arizona as a free agent, Detroit turned to veteran Randy Bullock, last with the Cincinnati Bengals.
What are the Lions getting in Bullock?
The 31-year-old Texas native is joining his sixth NFL team since being a fifth-round pick by his hometown Texans in the 2012 NFL draft. He had been with the Cincinnati Bengals since midway through the 2016 season when the Bengals claimed him off waivers from the rival Pittsburgh Steelers.
Statistically speaking, Bullock has been a good-not-great kicker for the Bengals. In 2020 he made 21-of-26 field goal attempts but did miss an extra point. For his career, Bullock’s FG percentage of 83.17 is 29th all-time and percentage points ahead of the man he’s replacing, Matt Prater (21-for-28 in 2020).
As for range, Bullock has a career-long of 57 yards from 2019. He hit 3-of-5 from beyond 50 yards in 2020, including a 55-yarder. His deeper accuracy has improved over the course of his career, too.
I asked Bengals Wire colleague Chris Roling for his thoughts on Bullock after watching him for the last five seasons. Here’s what Roling had to say,
Bullock was solid for the majority of his time in Cincinnati, but he got off on the wrong foot with Bengals fans right away because he bested fifth-round pick Jake Elliott for the job in 2017 (Elliott went on the Super Bowl in Philadelphia and such). He had some struggles in that first season that didn’t help before he evened out, becoming one of the most accurate kickers in team history en route to converting 84.9 percent of his kicks with the team.
Things did collapse for Bullock last year and he wound up benched in favor of Austin Seibert down the stretch, appearing in just 12 games. There was even a weird double-calf injury thing after a critical miss that cost the team a game in Week 1. He missed five of his 26 attempts last year, including two from the 30-39 range and missed an extra point.
Doesn’t sound like much, but it matters on a bad team just scraping by and he had a potential replacement breathing down his neck. He’s probably got plenty left in the tank but even a seasoned coach like Darrin Simmons was ready to explore other options.
One area where Bullock has an edge on Prater is in creating touchbacks on kickoffs. Bullock forced touchbacks on over 70 percent of his kickoffs over the last two seasons; Prater was just below 40 percent. Some of that was a focus by the old Lions coaching staff on wanting the opponent to run the ball back to try and create turnover or penalty opportunities, however.